Blue

Unfortunately killing chocobos does not provide any meat, nor are there any recipes available with chocobo meat (since, we can't get it). So I am going to assume it is very local cuisine typical of the Forelands' hunters.

What I meant is that I doubt that in the settings of Eorzea there are as many willing to pay you to JUST dance (and not sleep with them afterwards) than there are today. Today a dancer can fill up a theater to be seen dancing, but in Eorzea's times? You've got to be very expensive and good to be paid to just dance and by enough people to make a living by the end of the day. Dancing is born by the natural instinct of attracting a sexual mate. It is a series of movements that enhance your body and call to attract others to it. There is a lot of animals that perform ritual dances on their mating season, from birds to marine mammals, and man is not any different from that. Dancing and sex are interwined and bound to each other in society, and only in our very modern times we are trying to stray a little from that (though not so much, see all the borderline-porn music videos that are coming out today, for example).

The connection between dancing and prostitution is due to very ancient real world traditions in the courts, going as far as to ancient egypt. It was an usual show for a woman to dance before the Pharaon (Sultan, King, etc.) and the other nobles, and then go have sex with him or one of them (only if the king/sultan/etc. was not pleased with the performance/looks of the woman, or sometimes, the king/sultan would pass on a woman as a gift to one of his most loyal man). And it's not just dancing, women living at the court were required to have a full set of skills all focused on entertainment for them: this went from dancing, acting, playing instruments, serving tea/wine. This can be still seen in the art of the Geisha today. In short, even though a woman may have been hired just to dance, it was not uncommon (and almost a given) for them to sleep with one (or several) of the audience at the end of the show for a much more substantial cash. See the Moulin Rouge as an example. The profession of exclusive dancer is something that belongs to our very modern era, where such profession does have a substantial enough income. I don't think Eorzea is developed enough for one to live of just dancing. I'm not saying you have to be a prostitute to RP a dancer in FFXIV, but this is why the connection between the art and profession is legitimately justified, so don't be overly shocked if one may think so of your dancing character.

I RP Jet'a almost on an exclusively nocturnal schedule IC. A few times he has been forced to intervene during the day, and in those instances he always has worn sunglasses, as I RP his eyes to be very sensitive to the light of day. A creepy nocturnal wizard if there ever was one! He has also been called "shady" by others on more than one occasion, and the kids at the orphanage he lives/works at like to call him "the monster in the basement", as that is where his lab is kept. Sooo waiting for the Housing Indoor Lighting feature to make his lair EVEN more creepy![/align]

I might use the one the Miqo'te has as an upgrade to Clive's hairstyle, just so he stops looking like a tanned Thancred.

Perhaps we have different definitions of Gothic. Gothic, to me, pertains to the Holy Roman Empire, and all the things that come with that. Which Ishgard itself reflects very heavily, but which the gearsets largely neglect. Gothic and Victorian don't go together super well. It'd be kind of like having a 1930s gangster theme where everyone is a cowboy. Different eras with very different cultures and aesthetics. Perhaps it is due to different language and culture, but over here in Italy, anything inspired to/derived from the Holy Roman Empire is defined as romantic (from the italian words Roma (Rome) and Antico (Ancient) ). Gothic matches more to what Vachir posted.

I'm in Italy, but 99% of the people I RP with on at least a weekly basis are in the US, sooo... I think I'll stick to Balmung. We've been together for seven years now, we're basically family.

!!! Wooo! They finally extended /dance to all races! About time! (I wonder if they're extending them among all genders too? I think the hyur on the first pic is using the Miqo'te Female one, but I'm not 100% sure) That Lalall is definitely using the Miqo'te female dance in the second picture, and midlander female in the third. Edit: also, I hope they're made persistent. Now, if only they changed their mind on facial expressions too...

Whichever the case and opinion, I find the excuse of "someone else would do it anyway" to be very short-sighted and detrimental in society as a whole. "Why should I recycle? Others won't do it anyway, it's pointless." "Why should I buy the ticket to the bus? Plenty of people travel without paying too." and on, and on. We have to be the change we want, we can't always wait for "others" to start a good trend. We've got to pay it forward. Me, I have decided to not have personal housing at all (again, because 1: I'm lucky enough to be in an FC that lets me do what I want with anything, and 2: because personal houses, even large ones, are just too small without personal rooms, and 3: personal houses get less traffic/visitors/RP than FC houses do, because they involve less people), and even more, our FC has decided that when we will move to another house, we will relinquish ours without asking money from anyone. Do I judge people who don't do this? No. Do I wish more people did it? Yes, of course, and I encourage people to do both things (having just one house/leaving old houses for free) every chance I can. Doesn't mean I am calling them out if they choose to do otherwise. It's their choice, after all. All I know is that, in a system where only a small percentage of players is able to enjoy the housing content, I can feel well with myself knowing that I am doing the least possible damage to the other homeless players. I was always a very sensitive and easily-tripped-into-guilt person in real life, and I quite literally would not sleep if I had handled the housing situation any differently than this. Hell, thinking about it, when our FC finally got a house, one of the first things that happened was someone running up to me and /slap me, likely because we had claimed the plot before he could get to it, and that was enough to make me feel bad for the whole day.

Given that there are a lot of players who don't have even one house due to the finite availability, yet they are active players, I sorta feel like maybe it would be really nice of you to consider not buying houses for your alts. It doesn't make a lot of logical sense for one player to have multiple houses when other players have none. Agreed. If you want your alts to have a house, put them in a FC that has housing. I have only FC housing (not bothering with personal housing, it's too small and gets even less visitors/purposes RP-wise), and have got all my alts invited to it. I couldn't be happier because not only all my alts have a home without taking it from someone else, but thanks to their Rooms the FC house feels much bigger than any personal house ever will. Let me start off by saying that I despise how the housing market is currently set. SE even stated it's purpose is to be a gil sink which I think is absolutely the wrong thing to do. Most people will not have the 35-70 mil it takes to purchase a plot/build on it. That being said, if he has enough gil to purchase multiple houses for his alts, it is well within his right to do so. he's earned that gil one way or another and I don't think it's at all fair to judge them for buying plots for their alts. If he can afford 6 houses and I can't afford even one, whos fault is it really? Mine. Thing is, we're not in a server with plenty of open plots no one is buying. Plenty of people have the cash and are waiting for a spot to open (such as me, because I don't like the idea of paying another player to relinquish. It's not how the system was intended to be), and when it'll open, it should be good and fair to let those who do not have a house to purchase first, before thinking of one's alts. If we were in a place with open plots that no one is buying because no one else has the cash, then I say go for it. But Balmung is no such case.

I really hope the passenger for ceremony/draught/amber chocobo doesn't have to have all aetheric currents attuned in order to sit, because this would open up to a great Taxi business! Just imagine all the un-attuned clients seeking a chocobo ride to see blocked zones and reach their currents faster! I'd totally roll a choco-taxi.

Given that there are a lot of players who don't have even one house due to the finite availability, yet they are active players, I sorta feel like maybe it would be really nice of you to consider not buying houses for your alts. It doesn't make a lot of logical sense for one player to have multiple houses when other players have none. Agreed. If you want your alts to have a house, put them in a FC that has housing. I have only FC housing (not bothering with personal housing, it's too small and gets even less visitors/purposes RP-wise), and have got all my alts invited to it. I couldn't be happier because not only all my alts have a home without taking it from someone else, but thanks to their Rooms the FC house feels much bigger than any personal house ever will.

Players that pay for the game. SE made it possible to keep houses indefinitely. We complained, and said "NOPE CANNOT HAVE THIS," and SE changed things accordingly. Still nothing being changed about FC leaders owning their own personal house besides technically holding the FC house as well. Honestly, I have never ever seen anyone being mad about this back on my older server, but for people on Balmung being pissy about it due to us roleplayers putting so much more value on it. And it is not as if they can be stopped if they would implement it, unless they would make it an account wide lock, seeming alts are a thing as well. People with lots of gil will always own houses one way or the other, but FCs being screwed over is regrettably, but think about it, how many FC leaders own a house besides their FC house? I know... one? It isn't going to solve anything but for pissing a few people off for the sake of a very few others. Start making gil, and you too can find your personal house until SE conjures up a better solution. See but I think there is a particular detail that you are not considering here. FC leader can change. What if I bought a personal house, then my FC leader quitted and leadership passed on me? "It wouldn't if they set it up that personal house owners couldn't get FC leadership/Create an FC." What if all members left had their personal house? FC leadership has to go to someone. So what happens then? Do I suddenly lose claim on my personal plot? Or do I become one of those rare exceptional FC leaders who have FC housing AND personal house? It simply cannot be set up that way, not when FC leadership can be passed over. But the alts problem, that really should be addressed. But that's just as fickle as the other to set up, because SE cannot demonstrate which is your alt and which is your main, or if you play a character and some relative of yours plays an alt on the same account and wants their own house (even though the ToS say no one should play on the same account as another....).

While I'm happy, I am not totally satisfied (as if I ever am, lol). First of all I don't like that it's not retroactive, and even more that we got the information out a month ahead before the feature will actually be implemented, giving all those quitters a chance to come back just once to keep their unused house. For the same reason, I am not too excited to see that house owners will receive multiple alerts. If a person needs so many alerts to keep a house, then they're really not using it enough to care and shouldn't own one to begin with (not when the housing supply satisfies only 2% of the players at least. This is really not the time to be greedy, and those who really use houses a lot should have priority/more chances to claim one over the patch-quitters). Lastly, I don't particularly understand the 80% gil refund when SE insisted times and times again that housing is an intended gil sink. I think the possibility to get gil back will only encourage purchase from people who don't really want a house that much, whereas without a gil refund, one would think once or twice before making a purchase (especially when the purchase includes having to pay someone to leave, which is the absolute worst). All in all, I'm glad to see unused houses empty, but with this much fore-warning, alerts and refund-incentives, I do wonder how many plots will actually free up... Certainly less than what we would've gotten if there had been no fore-warning.

Everyone should do that. ERPing with someone under 18 can get you in legal trouble.

As a little bit of shameless self-advertisement, I'd like to remind/let new people know that Tales of Hydaelyn is an MSQ RP LS on Balmung. Currently we have removed ourselves from the Linkshell Hall because we are planning to put up a new one once our IC progress reaches Heavensward, but people can join us at any given time. This is our current website (a fancier, newer one is in the works). Anyone can join, at any time, through an application there. Our current IC progress is reaching the end of 2.4 (we have just defeated Shiva), but even then you can join as a Scion and Warrior of Light, or an entirely different type of character (having the Echo IC is advised, but not necessary. Keep in mind however it'd be hard for you to participate in Primal fights without the Echo). As long as you are okay with that (we can't re-RP previous quests, sorry...!), we might be just the thing for you! This sounded like a great project, and I was following it with interest. Sad to see things didn't go as planned, but hopefully my LS can provide an alternative for all of you who wished to RP an alter-ego, or your main character, through the Main Scenario story.

I don't know how it could affect just the game, but for a while I had my router reset at the same hour every day for a month straight. Contacting my ISP it turned out that they had been setting my router to do that in order to "improve connection", or so they stated. Guess they didn't expect me to stay online 24/7 as I infact do. Either way, all I had to do was to go to my ISP's website, in the customer area, and reset my LAN settings. I'm not a computer person so I don't really know how to explain how it worked, but it did work. I'm unsure if ISP websites allow you to do that in the US, but here in Italy they do. I went to the ISP website, then logged in, went to "my page/customer area/my internet/whatchamacall it", then to "Router Settings" and lastly to "LAN settings". It asked me if I wanted to do it manually like pro people or if I wanted it to reset automatically. I clicked automatic settings cause I'm not into that stuff, and that fixed it.

Speaking of which.... Has anyone noticed? http://xivdb.com/?quest/67687/Sweeping-the-Meadows >_> <_< Witch's Broom mount incoming...!

It's a shame there aren't any readily available horse mounts for people to use. Sure we get a plethora of magical horses that come in every color imaginable but no normal looking ones that you do not have to pvp forever to get. Honestly, from my own experience and tastes, the one that looks the most "normal" is Sleipnir. The other model of horses (even the PvP ones, which are supposed to be normal horses from the Far East) all have joints in the wrong place and an overall abnormal bone structure. When they made Heavensturn two years ago, the kabutos gave me the idea that Far Eastern horses were actually identical to the ones we have in real life, so I was totally disappointed to learn that the PvP ones are considered Far Eastern horses. It's a damn shame... Anywho, I'll stick to Sleipnir. At least it has a normal, non-strutting walk (and at a more realistic speed) and a saddle.

Given their mongolian-inspired roots, I'd see the Xaela more into horseball than polo (polo is a very western-European thing, mostly british). Horseball on the other hand is still popular in Asia and in particular in the mongolian/arabian countries. The more traditional still refuse to use a ball and instead play with a dead goat, as it originally used to be when the game was created (don't be so creeped on, the primordial football also used goat stomachs filled with sand before the moden ball was invented!). As an all-around fan and scholar of anything horse-related (I've been a horse trainer for most of my employed years), I'd be totally up for something of the sort. If not horseball, a race would be ideal. I have already a few favorite tracks scattered around Eorzea that provide nice jumping spots and difficult turns. And let's not forget rodeos! Yes, in short, I'd definitely love to see any horse-related event. Them chocobos have way too much glory on themselves!

While not my favorite, I am subscribed to all of Buzzfeed's channels. They treat all sort of stuff, and in a very clear and light way. A day doesn't pass by without me learning something new from their videos, and among all their channels they post several videos a day. If you want to learn something interesting every day through very short videos, and always have a topic to talk about, they are the stuff for you. Today's favorite from them is this one: Here's all their channels: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf4FYTsGFFcdc68AUPIU3RA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBUVGPsJzc1U8SECMgBaMFw https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPRUgAl_MV9PajsrG_BmT9w https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpko_-a4wgz2u_DgDgd9fqA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2GnuulpFRtTGFNuS1LKL5g https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCay_OLhWtf9iklq8zg_or0g

I completely agree that it doesn't take much effort to play fair, and I share your wish that less people would be dirtbags about it. I'm just saying, if SE truly believed their players wouldn't take advantage of every loophole they could find, that's frankly astonishing. When the creator of Ultima Online visited his own creation to meet with his game's players, the first thing they tried to do was kill the shit out of him, just to see if they could. There's a precedent for MMO players being impossibly evil, and there has been for years. Right, I remember that story. The sad thing is that I believe most of these people are not even jerks, but do it because others do it. It's like the train of thought of "Why bother with recycling trash? For every plastic bottle I carefully store in a recycle bin, 5 other people will not do it." And it's sadly a very common mentality. To me, other people being dirtbags is not a good excuse to be a dirtbag myself. I thank how I was raised for being like this, and I honestly wish more people had the same teachings I've had on the matter of altruism and sharing. Now to sit and wait to see how many are going to exploit "Housing Sharing" to put their houses for rent in 3.1 or whenever that will be implemented. I expect to see a lot of shit like "Pay me 50k a month and I'll keep you in the list of people who can use my house."

Building a system based on the expected altruism of people on the internet is a system designed from the ground up to fail miserably. Since the dawn of digital interaction we've proved that if you give someone on the internet a chance to be a massive jerk, they will be a massive jerk nine times out of ten. Intention doesn't mean jack squat if you don't implement the means to enforce that intention. If SE is honestly surprised that people took advantage of a glaring loophole in the housing system, I would question just how based in reality Yoshi-P's housing team really is. Right, and we have seen that in how they designed wedding bangles. SE allowed us to trade bangles with the idea that a player could buy a bangle and use it to surprise and propose the partner, and nothing more. And what came from that? People sell bangles, because the trading mechanic allows it. It's basically legal RMTing, as well as the rare dyes. SE designed both housing and those items with innocent expectations, but it didn't go as they expected. And the fault again is that demand is higher than the offer, because housing servers are nowhere enough to meet the demand, and thus people take advantage of it by making others pay. It may take some effort to find the will to relinquish a house for free, or the will to not own more than one plot on your account, but it can be done. I for one, not only don't sell my plot, bangles, dyes, nor own more than one house on my account. I even flat out boicot personal housing (for various reasons that range from: it's too small, too expensive, poorly designed, and I don't like the idea of a single player occupying a plot that could be used by a plurality of players such as a Free Company instead) by sticking just to our FC house (FC houses are much better anyway, with the rooms they are much bigger than any personal house will ever be, especially if you take the effort to grind alts to make them build more rooms in it!). All it takes is a bit of good heart.

UPDATE: Considering the recent developments concerning SE's policy on housing/FC trading, we have decided to take down the offer. We will simply continue to gather gil and wait for a Large plot to open up to be claimed (we're at 60M anyway, that's not too far from being able to afford a fresh new lowest class large plot, yay! That took only a year and a half!). If you see a large plot available and would like to let us know, that would be great, of course, and we are also open to donations should you feel your pockets too heavy. However, keep in mind that when we get wind of a new large plot available, our current FC house will simply be relinquished and free for anyone to take it, so please don't ask us to "reserve" it (I've been getting a lot of those whispers, sadly). It wouldn't be fair for us to reserve it for anyone, considering all the requests we've been getting. Seen how the focus of the thread is over with, I will not mind if the mods decided to delete it. Thanks a lot everyone for your time and care! - The Rose of Sharon

I'm not talking about the nature of the business, I'm talking about the approach that SE has towards it. It is the same ("We know you can do it, but please don't do it.") Housing was not made with the idea that people would make other players pay them to leave claim of a limited content. Housing was intended as a gil sink, not a way to make gil, and that is why there isn't a feature to sell plots. That people can "get money back" or "profit" from selling their plots is an unwritten rule decided by the (majority of) the community, and not from SE themselves. When they made the wards, they probably innocently thought that players who no longer wanted their house would simply relinquish the plot freely, without making others pay. Obviously this is not what is happening. It would be as if I had the power to keep claim of all the karakuls in Coerthas at the same time. You want the skins, I'm not letting you have them. You can pay me to leave, or you can simply wait for me to leave. SE thought people would do the latter, but in fact, as it stands (due to the atrocious situation of housing on high pop. server), there are more people willing to pay for me to leave the sheep (house) than there are willing to wait for me to simply get tired of trying to sell it and leave the area (plot). Now some might argue that, if the game had a built-in refund system, people would not force other players to pay them to leave a plot. But then comes again the fact that housing is an intended gil-sink. So no, there will never be a refund system from the game, and I honestly feel that circumvent this nature by taking the gil of other players is unethical, as well as unfair. If the game made you pay 6M for your house, I don't see why I should pay 21M for it instead, just because I came after you.